‘Ted?’ she called, knocking again, concerned she’d startled him and he’d fallen over or something.

How naive, she thought moments later, as Ted opened the door, flustered, and a woman she recognised from the group of secretaries (Sarah?) emerged from behind him, rearranging her red dress. She shot a quick, awkward smile at Nina before walking over to her desk, picking up her handbag, and bolting out of the office. Nina followed her trajectory across the floor and turned back to Ted, open-mouthed.

‘What the—?’ she said as Ted ushered her into the room by her elbow, his face hot and panicked but, hideously, bearing the tiniest trace of a smirk. ‘Are you fucking serious?’ Nina said, not bothered that the door wasn’t yet fully closed. She thought of how Alice was that weekend in Paris, the degradation of her confidence during the course of her marriage. It was like soil erosion, small particles of earth slipping into the sea so slowly that you don’t realise until it’s too late how much has been lost.

He closed the door behind her and folded his arms across his chest.

‘Hi, Nina. Good to see you too.’ The way he said it recalled a Ted of the past, a Ted from before he got together with Alice. Aside from that one terrible night, before the wedding, all interactions between them since had been purely platonic. He was being flirtatious and it made her stomach flip with nausea.

‘Don’t do that,’ she said, short.

He paused thoughtfully, looked her up and down and a feeling of revulsion shuddered in her temples. Something was deeply wrong. It occurred to her she hadn’t been alone with Ted since that night. For a long time she had avoided him, then there had been the christenings and birthday parties during which she was always careful to stay out of his orbit, and then, after more than a decade, there were the business meetings with him and the other partners, but they had never been alone.

‘Does it offend your moral compass?’ he asked, his head inclined towards Sarah’s desk.

‘Yes, it does, as a matter of fact, because you’re married to my best friend and you have three children, Ted. What on earth are you doing?’ To her horror Ted remained indifferent, moving over to his desk, opening a drawer and retrieving a bottle of Scotch and two tumblers.

‘As I’m sure you know, Nina…’ He slid a glass of Scotch across the desk to her, but she ignored it. ‘I’m separated. So I can do whatever the hell I like.’

‘What are you talking about?’ She suddenly felt unsteady; she sank into one of Ted’s square tan-leather chairs, which looked over the City. Oh my God, she thought, and felt her face crumple. Did Alice know about what happened on the eve of her wedding? Is that why Nina hadn’t heard from her? She’d always known she needed to tell her, but she thought she had time; she never dreamed Ted would tell her first.